Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - With winter fast approaching and Daylight Saving Time having come this past weekend, the battle against Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) becomes more prominent across the nation, especially in Western New York.
Seasonal Affective Disorder can be best described as a variant of major depression having to deal with the effects of less daylight in a given day.
"When we talk about major depression, we're talking about changes in sleep, feelings of guilt, hopelessness, loss of energy, depressed mood, not enjoying things we normally enjoy. In severe cases, suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Seasonal Affective Disorder is similar to that, but the symptoms can be a little bit different," said Dr. Michael Cummings, Associate Medical Director of ECMC. "It's actually been described as almost like a state of hibernation. As the daylight hours get shorter and shorter, people tend to sleep more, they can they eat more and have weight gain associated with it, socially isolate themselves. It's fairly prevalent, and it's a serious condition."
Distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Adam Ashton says patients dealing with SAD will find they have a window where they're vulnerable for their depression to happen, and then recover from it as increasing daylight occurs towards springtime.
"Some people might have it begin as early as October, some people might have it not happen until close to Christmas. There's no one set timing for it, but people are afflicted in our region based on our latitude at about 10.5% of the Buffalo population," said Dr. Ashton in an interview with WBEN.
While the seasons and conditions could change drastically in a short amount of time in Western New York, it's not the temperature and weather that can take its toll on an individual dealing with SAD.
It's rather based on your geographic location, where the father North you are, the higher rates of depression and the increased likelihood of someone affected by SAD. According to experts, the higher rates of people dealing with SAD are located in states like Alaska, Washington, Michigan and Vermont.
"It really, particularly Seasonal Affective Disorder, has to do with exposure to sunlight during the day. And as the days get shorter, people who are at risk for this, that's one of the reasons why they start developing this," Dr. Cummings said. "There's a lot of other things that happen with change of season and bad weather. It's more difficult to socialize, and certainly social isolation and loneliness are risk factors for mortality and depression just by themselves. But SAD is distinctly separate from all that. Even if you control for everything else, it's a condition that will happen to people. It typically starts in November, and starts getting better late winter, again, as springtime and daylight starts increasing again."
So what are some good ways to try and combat SAD and ensure a healthier lifestyle in Western New York through the winter months?
One of the ways that can help some people is being able to travel places where there's more daylight in the wintertime. However, a brief exposure to sunlight over a given period of time may not be the right solution for everyone.
"It's that every morning exposure to light, and perhaps other treatments that will help," Dr. Cummings said. "During the winter months, we have holidays which can be difficult, depends on your social situation, isolation and loneliness, all those things also factor in. So even if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder, making sure you're staying connected socially with loved ones, whether it's in-person or using the internet, trying to do community-based things, trying to figure out if the holidays are difficult for you, what may be causing that and working on improving those things. Those are also going to help you, even if they're not targeting Seasonal Affective Disorder directly."
Another suitable solution to help those dealing with SAD includes the use of light boxes.
"Morning light is generally more effective to treat depression than light later on in the day, and hopefully have a prescriber help monitor how many minutes you use," Dr. Ashton explained. "Even though you might think that light is a benign thing, you can actually have side effects from too much of the bright white light that's used in these light boxes, where patients then suffer from feeling irritable, not able to sleep, and perhaps agitated. It's very unpleasant."
The light boxes are not UV lights, so there's no risk of skin cancer or a sun tan from being exposed. Dr. Cummings says the light boxes usually come in at around 10,000 lumens or above, which is still very bright.
"You get up in the morning, and you sit, maybe when you reading the paper, or whatever you do in your morning routine, and you have this light fairly close to your face and it kind of enters your eye at an angle, you're not looking directly at it. 20-to-30 minutes of that each morning can really help people who suffer from this," he said.
As for your traditional ways to treat SAD and other forms of major depression, there's therapy and medications available for people, which could include supplements for those who may face a Vitamin D deficiency.
If you may be dealing with SAD or another variant of major depression, both Dr. Cummings and Dr. Ashton recommend to contact your primary care doctor in order to get the direct help you need.